by Durjoy Datta
We all looked at Boudi. I hoped with all my heart she wouldn’t insist on a party. Won’t it be sad? To be surrounded by non-existent friends and a family that I could hardly respect.
Seeing Boudi as the centre of all attention broke my heart. She felt important, loved, believed she was a part of this family. Luckily, she asked me to give away the money to Helpage India. Dada was disappointed in me, saying I was getting too blasé too early in my life. He fussed over me the entire day, goading me into going somewhere with Brahmi, Arundhati, anyone.
‘It’s depressing to see you sitting here on your birthday,’ said Dada. ‘I couldn’t celebrate it the way I wanted to this time around so I thought I would live a little through yours but you’re such a disappointment.’
‘How does it matter, Dada? Just one year after another.’
‘Oh, c’mon. Don’t be this sad, okay?’
‘Why would I be sad? Everything is just perfect, isn’t it?’ I asked.
Dada laughed. ‘Yes it is, did you see how Maa asked Zubeida what she wanted? I never thought it would come to that.’
‘We are fortunate to have such loving parents, aren’t we?’ I said, the sarcasm again lost on him.
‘Sometimes I think that if all Maa–Baba wanted was a child to reconcile with my marriage I should have planned it that way. Do you look at Maa when she looks at Zubeida? Like she’s got back our Mina,’ said Dada.
I was confused whether to pity him or feel anger so I just nodded.
‘Hey? I forgot to ask? What happened with Brahmi?’
‘I broke up with her,’ I said.
Dada started to laugh. He said, ‘You broke up with her? You?’
‘I don’t know why it’s funny.’
Dada put his arm around me and said, ‘It’s okay, Raghu. It happens.’
‘Of course it does.’
Later in the evening Boudi had a severe coughing bout. Her doctor asked if we had a dog at home. We told him about Mina and the doctor advised not to have the dog inside the house until the delivery. Boudi is at a severe risk of developing allergies, he told us. When we came back, Maa made us all take long baths and scrubbed the house clean of Mina’s fur.
‘Didn’t I tell you? Maa would do anything for Zubeida now. It’s so cute,’ said Dada, smiling.
I think this experiment has been great, writing to myself, but I think it will soon come to an end. And I know when to end this. Once I help Dada tide over the birth of his child, tell them about Maa–Baba, and settle them in the humdrum routine of raising a child. Earlier I thought I would do it the day of the birth but I think that would have been selfish and would be like stealing the child’s thunder. I am sad, I’m not crazy. As I was writing this, I saw Richa on her balcony staring at the road. I snapped and shouted at her, ‘NOW WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STANDING THERE FOR?’
She said in a low tone, ‘I’m not here for you,’ and got up and left.
30 January 2000
This year it’s a school holiday for Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary. He died fifty-two years ago today. Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic and a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS before that, fired at Gandhi, whom he blamed for helping in the partition of India.
‘It’s good that Godse killed him rather than a Muslim,’ said Dada. ‘Imagine the riots that would have caused.’
But I guess we do a good job at hiding that we dislike someone for our own gain. Like Maa–Baba, who have been fussing over Boudi like she is their child, or Brahmi who had loved me till the time she didn’t. Had I not heard Maa–Baba that day in the kitchen I would have fallen for their charade as well. Had I not asked Brahmi to leave me, god knows how much longer she would have played out the charade of being in love with me. Brahmi hasn’t reached out, which shows how devastated she is. Not even a courtesy call to ask if I’m doing well.
But the pain they have caused me would have been worse had I not known they were capable of lies, of betrayal. Brahmi had shown signs from the very beginning by lying to me about her parents, by hiding things about her past even though she told me she loved me, and the less we talk about Maa–Baba the better. It’s like all these years some hateful creatures lived in a little shell buried inside Maa–Baba which broke forth and took over their minds and their hearts the minute Boudi walked into Dada’s life.
Every time Maa holds Boudi, laughs at her quips, caresses her face, or is kind to her, my stomach churns. How many times did Brahmi tell me she loved me when she really didn’t?
Maa, my beloved Maa, turns into an evil, conniving crone, like a shadow of Didimaa. It’s in her blood, so why not. I don’t want to say it. The word has a finality. You can’t come back from it unless you use it frivolously. I have started to hate Maa. Even as I write this my hands tremble. But I’m sure this is what I feel inside.
HATE. It’s as simple as that.
I hate her pretence, I hate her capacity to fake love and concern, I hate her machinations, and I hate her refusal to accept Boudi as a human. I hate that she thinks of the life inside Boudi as Dada’s and Dada’s alone. I hate that she smiles the same smile with me. I would pick Baba’s rants, Maa’s tears and Dada’s rebellion over the stage performances of Maa–Baba any day. I would pick a splintered family than this excuse of one any day.
The choice to end this lies with me. I can tell Dada about the conversation I had overheard, ask him to take Boudi and go, make a life somewhere else, forget he had parents, bring up his child as an atheist . . . but I won’t right now. I want to see what else Maa–Baba are capable of. So that when I abandon them I can tell them WHY in a list that runs endlessly. I want them to regret their decisions for the rest of their lives.
Moreover, if they could use Boudi to spawn their grandchild then why shouldn’t Boudi use Maa’s care that she so evidently needs during the pregnancy?
P.S. I haven’t decided the building as of now. I will once the child is born.
14 February 2000
It’s been days since I have talked to Rishab or Sahil or Arundhati. My attendance in school has been sketchy the past couple of months. I had made Maa–Baba realize that school was a waste of time and I needed more time at home to complete my IIT modules. Maa–Baba had promptly called the principal and eked out an arrangement. The principal had summarily objected but he knew that an IIT ranker in their alumni is just what they needed. My seniors were nincompoops and no one was expected to clear IIT. I was their shining light. I don’t miss my school fellows at all. I don’t miss Maa–Baba and Dada as they were. And of all the people I don’t miss, it’s Brahmi. I don’t miss her voice, I don’t miss her touch, I don’t miss her presence—yes, I don’t miss her at all. And why will I miss her? It’s not as if I think she was a part of me. It’s not as if the last few days of my life have been spent in abject despair, or as if I spent every waking minute reliving everything that we shared, everything that seemed real and true and everlasting, or as if I have mourned the loss of every possible future I have seen with her, or as if sometimes the pain is so hard to bear that I fiddle with the paper cutter.
So imagine my consternation when I found Brahmi waiting outside my school. Like a child running away from a swarm of bees I ran away from her. I ran and ran till I thought I would run out of solid ground to run on. But she was there too. Like a ghost.
‘This is what you meant when you said you didn’t want anything to do with me?’ said Brahmi.
My heart thumped with a ferocity I had not felt before. Was it happiness? Was it sadness? Was it the exhaustion of running?
‘Why are you here? I thought I had made it plenty clear that we shouldn’t have to do anything with each other.’
‘I just came here to see how you were doing.’
‘What would happen to me? I’m fine,’ I said.
‘You don’t look fine,’ she said. ‘Come, sit.’
‘I don’t want to sit. I want to go.’
‘Don’t throw a tantrum now. Come and sit here.’
She p
atted the pavement she sat on.
Begrudgingly, I did as asked. As much as it pained me to see her, I couldn’t budge, like I was under her spell. She seemed to have become even more beautiful, if that was possible.
‘You haven’t been talking to anyone,’ said Brahmi.
‘Isn’t that entirely my choice?’
‘It is but they are your friends. You don’t pick up their calls, you don’t meet them, you don’t even sit with them. Why?’
‘I don’t think of them as my friends.’
‘Why not?’
‘They don’t matter.’
‘That’s—’
‘I never had the need of making friends, Brahmi. And I don’t want your advice. I think I was plenty clear that we shouldn’t be in touch any more. So now I will get up and go home and you won’t reach out to me.’
‘But why, Raghu?’
‘Because I don’t see any reason why we should be in touch. You are not the person I was in love with and it’s impossible for me to accept that. I will continue loving you till the time I can and it’s unfair on both of us to be in an unrequited relationship. I know you don’t feel the same way as you once did and that’s fine. Just as that is your prerogative, this is mine.’
Brahmi sighed deeply and said, ‘Raghu. There are things that are out of your hand. You can’t do anything about it. The world’s a shitty place and we have got to accept it. Maybe you’re not meant to save me or I to save you.’
‘I know that. But we were meant to suffer together, weren’t we?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think I can be there for you, Raghu.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said and got up.
I walked away from her. A stupid, stupid, stupid part of me wanted her to come and stop me. So when I turned a corner, I hid to see if she was following me. She was still on the pavement, tossing pebbles, staring out in the distance. When the pebbles around her disappeared, she started to weep. At first softly and then her whole body shook. I wanted to run to her, hold her, ask what’s troubling her but I chose to stand and watch for the next half an hour. Why should I be around to comfort her when she so brutally ripped herself out of my life?
And when has she ever opened up to me? She would talk in riddles and only make me sadder, if that’s possible. She quietened after a while and then drove off on her scooter. I came back home.
Richa shouted from the balcony, ‘Did you meet her?’
I waved my middle finger at her and what I assume was a celebratory look because of my break-up on her face. I have seen my seniors do that. Richa would have seen that too because she disappeared into her house.
It was late in the evening when Baba came home with an opened envelope addressed to me. It was without any stamps.
‘Has the girl still not left you?’ asked Maa.
‘I have nothing to do with her.’
‘You don’t?’ said Baba, mockingly. ‘Then what should I do with this card?’
‘Burn it,’ I said.
Maa–Baba would have sensed the seriousness in my tone because they left the card on the table. Boudi picked it up.
‘Why are the hearts cut out? Seems more like a break-up card,’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said and took the card from her.
Now as I’m looking at it the writing is Richa’s, not Brahmi’s. She seemed to have been heartbroken about me abusing her, or seeing Brahmi again. If only she would have known that there’s nothing left between Brahmi and me.
21 February 2000
Boudi’s heavily pregnant but with Maa–Baba fussing over her every little discomfort, it gives Dada a lot of time on his hands.
My retreat from the world of friends and frolic and going out has not been taken lightly by Dada. Apparently, Brahmi had reached out to Arundhati, Sahil and Rishab to involve me, talk to me, and make sure I was fine. It hadn’t ended well for anyone. A couple of days ago, all three of them had landed at my place unannounced. I had only briefly recovered from a depressing bout of reminiscing about Brahmi so the last thing I had wanted was to see them—my last surviving tether to her. What really angered me on seeing them was that she could call them but not me!
I told them I didn’t want to see them. They tried cracking stupid jokes, and suggest stupider things for me to do with them. Tired of their antics, I left the house and they came running after me.
Thrice I warned them to leave me alone, and yet they persisted. In my defence, I warned them suitably, so I am not solely responsible for what happened next. Rishab held my hand to stop me from walking away, and I wrested myself free, picked up a stone and swung it at him. He staggered back in shock and put his hand on his forehead. It came back red. Arundhati and Sahil shouted at me together. While Arundhati ran to tend to her boyfriend, Sahil charged at me, and received the same treatment. I got him in his ear and he fell down smack on the ground.
Arundhati shouted, ‘You are mental! So is your girlfriend! YOU BOTH ARE CRAZY.’
I dropped the stone. ‘She’s not my anything,’ I had said and walked away.
Maa–Baba and Dada–Boudi had heard of what I had done and Dada had been the entrusted with the responsibility of bringing me back to real life. Numerous times I have thought of telling him the truth about Maa–Baba, of my almost-firm plan of ending my life, but the thought of Meenakshi (possibly) has kept me from it. Dada has taken the task quite seriously. It started with him taking me to gaming arcades, which distracted me for a maximum of a couple of minutes.
‘You know how you will heal?’ he had said. ‘By going everywhere you have been with her.’
‘Sounds like the worst plan of all time.’
‘You didn’t let me complete. We will go and make better memories.’
‘It keeps getting worse.’
I tried it just to make Dada stop talking and get busy thinking his idea was working. A short visit to Keventer’s made me so depressed that the plan was aborted like many others that followed.
‘I miss my old brother,’ he often said.
‘I miss everything about the old times, Dada. But that’s not going to change anything, is it?’
‘God, why are you so depressing?’
I wish I could tell him.
He took another line of approach—just dragging me along to wherever he went. He let me in on a big, happy secret after a lot of gushing and beating around the bush.
‘I’m thinking of buying a new flat,’ he said. ‘Maa has been asking Zubeida and me to shift to their flat what with the kid coming. But you know how small that flat is, so I was thinking, why not shift to a bigger flat? I told Maa today I am moving into their flat.’
‘Why—’
‘Just listen. I’m hoping to close the deal before Zubeida delivers. After that I will surprise them with the new flat. What do you think?’ he asked and stared at me for affirmation.
‘That’s stupid. You can’t live with Maa–Baba,’ I said.
‘Why not? It will be fun. And it will be better for the child as well.’
None of my arguments held water. He was still going ahead with his stupid plan because he didn’t know the truth. He dragged me to every building I had been to, that I had marked and checked the roofs of, and others I hadn’t, and asked for my opinion of it. I rejected every one of them because I knew he wasn’t going to stay in any of them after I told them what Maa–Baba really thought of them. But I let him have his moment for now. Why spoil what would be one of the most beautiful moments of his life?
He would walk around the empty flats, tell me where he would put what, which bed would be placed where, where the crib would go, how big the kitchen would be, how we would place the air conditioner if we bought one. His excitement was infectious and disgusting. It gave me a troubling insight on Dada, which crushed my heart. He had been more devastated than any of us after he had had to leave the house. His version of the future had all of us living together, even Didimaa and Mama, and dogs, in a big house overlooking a garden and little kids
running around. Of course, what else could you expect out of someone appallingly optimistic? Dada has only chosen to see the good in people. Stupid as he is, he is even counting on Boudi’s family eventually coming around and accepting him and the child. In his vision, we will be the epitome of Muslim–Hindu unity, both families living under one roof in the middle of Delhi. So naive of him.
Some time or the other, he would slip in a question about Brahmi. He would see the look on my face and not probe further.
A couple of days back, Richa Mittal bumped into me while I distributed prasad to the beggars outside the temple and said, ‘I heard you are shifting.’
I wasn’t even surprised this time.
She continued, ‘Don’t forget to tell her your address.’
‘Are you referring to yourself as her?’ I scoffed.
She glared at me and left.
Dada and I spent the entire day together. We had to pack up their house and shift everything they had into our flat.
He looked happy and I was repulsed by his foolish happiness. While he packed, he told me, ‘Get into IIT Delhi. I don’t want you to move out.’
‘Why? Madras is much better,’ I said to humour him.
‘Your Boudi and I want you to stay with us. Four years is a long time and your nephew or niece would like you to be around. You wouldn’t want to be away,’ he said.
For the next few minutes, that thought did play on my mind. Would it be as easy to pull myself away from that little child and throw myself off a roof? Would it prevent me from doing it? Would it be another peg which I would be tethered to and destined to walk around in circles? And what would he or she think of me when she grows up knowing her or his uncle killed himself within weeks of his or her birth? Would that little child be worth the suffering that would come? And in that moment, it struck me that I was already expecting to derive my happiness from someone who hadn’t even opened her or his eyes, who was still floating in amniotic fluid. I was like Maa–Baba, who had never stopped deriving their happiness out of us and when we failed to supply that, they turned against us like a virulent disease.